Borneo
Borneo
Kota Kinabalu
We arrived in Borneo and got a taxi into Kota Kinabalu. We headed out looking for a bed and fell upon ‘Backpacker Lodge’ “Lucys’ Homestay” . It is amazing, Lucy is like a mum she is lovely. he gives you all of the information you could possibly need to do things you want while you are in Borneo and will even phone friends for you to see if she can help. It is 18RM for a bed per night but that includes breakfast of toast and fruit and tea or coffee. For a room it is 40RM. They even have a TV there so if you are trying to stick to your budget as we are you can sit in and watch movies of an evening which is I am sad to say what we do most nights.
We have had a good wonder around KK and there are several shopping centres full of goodies to buy and food courts to eat in. There are also some good markets not to be missed although they are a bit smelly. And, there is a new bar and restaurant complex at one end of the sea front that has a massive seafood restaurant with tanks where you can pick what you want to eat!! It is quite a sight. We arranged all of our tours from agents in KK including Mount Kinabalu.
Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary
We flew from KK to Sandakan to save ourselves the 6 hour bus jouney and it only cost 15GBP so we weren’t complaining. We got a taxi from Sandakan to The Jungle Resort for a bed for the night. It is set in the most beautiful surroundings again it will have to wait for photos as I will not be able to do it justice. The rooms are basic but with hot showers so we were happy.We arrived in the morning so in the afternoon we headed over to the Orangutan sanctuary for the afternoon feed. It was amazing you go along a boardwalk to the feeding platform and right on cue they all turn up for food. They are adorable. They are all relatively young and hours of fun to watch. We got soaked the following day while we were watching them feed as it rained so hard I can’t even describe it that didn’t deter them though. Jamie and I even braved doing one of the treks through the rainforest you can do there by yourself. They warned us that it was muddy where it had been raining so hard recently. We could have had no idea it was like walking through one great big muddy puddle. We got about half way and then we had to turn back as we were both covered in leeches…Jamie more so as he was wearing open shoes. They were discusting, and I was surprised at how I didn’t totally freak out when I found one up me trouser leg feasting on my knee!!! Highly amusing!! 🙂
After 2 days at the Jungle resort we jumped on the bus back to KK for 6 hours but they played movies all the way there so the time went quite fast. Back in KK we celebrated my birthday by going to Shennanigans and watching the live band who were brilliant and Lucy came along and had a boogie with us (she loves to dance). The group of us ended up going to a cheaper bar later on and sat there until 2.30 making the Borneons ears bleed by singing songs at them. They were more than tolerant and even sang along with us it was brilliant. the next day four of us headed to Mount Kinabalu…..extremely hungover, not good.
Mount Kinabalu
We all got to Mount Kinabalu base camp dumped our bits in the dorm and attended the mountain briefing, had dinner of steamboat and then early to bed for in preparation for the climb. After a not great nights sleep (inconsiderate dorm buddies :-< ) we got up and headed to the meeting area we looked up and could see the peak of the mountain it was such a clear day it looked beautiful. A group of 7 of us shared a guide and started the climb. (Guides are quite expensive it is a really good idea to ask around your fellow climbers and see who sharing as more often than not there are plenty of you ready and willing to share a guide)We were all quite relaxed as people we had met at base camp told us how easy it was.......they were lying. We haven't really exercised for 3 months so believe us when we say it was hard...bloody hard. Its all steps and rocks a foot high. It seemed to go on for ever. It was hard hard hard!! We reached summit camp after almost 6 hours climbing,(some people had done it in 4 hours!). If it wasn’t for the group I don’t think many of us would have made it as far as we did. All of us took a turn to lead and set the pace and it helped that when one of us was having a bad time of it the rest of us could encourage them and vice versa. We all ate the extausionate $$$ food (take your own boiling water is free) and then headed to the showers which were supposed to be hot (as it is a bit chilly up there) but they just did not have enough hot water to go around and it took about 1 and ½ hours for the water to heat up again. We all got ourselves into bed as we had to be up at 2.30am to make the climb to the peak.
We were rudely awoken by our alarm and were up and out by 3am and admittedly I did not feel to great along with quite a few others. It seemed that the altitude was getting to us. We all started climbing and after about 1/2 hour I felt so ill and couldn't breathe so I had to turn back....doh!!! I was not happy. Everyone carried on up and I headed back to bed. From the 7 of us in our group only 3 made it to the peak. Jamie got there at 5.30am and unfortunately it was really cloudy so he couldn't see anything other than clouds so he raced back down to the summit camp and went to sleep for a bit before making our descent.
We started the descent at about 10 o 'clock. The descent was much harder than any of us could have imagined. Our legs seemed to have a mind of there own and we had no way of controlling them. Our knees kept locking, so we couldn’t bend them and when they weren’t locking they seemed to be racing forward leaving our bodies behind struggling to keep up. All of us at some point lost all control and landed on our knees and nearly faces on some occasions. We met quite a few people on their way up and we did all we could to bite our tongues, smile politely and say how great it is and that it is worth the effort J!! Again we all took it in turns to set the pace and we all did what we could to hang on for dear life where possible and not land on our arses. After what seemed to be racing down we reached the waterfall which is sort of like a marker for the beginning and end (for us anyway) and as we turned the corner we were met with the steps, we had forgotten we had walked down at the beginning. It was like a final test we all got up them as fast as we can. To get it over and done with rather than to see who was the fastest. It took about 4 hours to reach the bottom and we all posed for photos before jumping on the minibus to take us back to the base. We all laughed and joked and then when it was time to get out of the mini bus we all realized our legs had actually given up so we had to lean on random people just to get ourselves out of the bus. We walked down to the bus stop said our goodbyes jumped on the bus and headed back to KK. From the bus terminal we got the shuttle bus to KK centre and to Lucy’s where we got in, sat and didn’t get up.
For the days that followed we really could not do much without our legs screaming at us. This included even simple tasks as getting out of bed and going to the toilet!!! ;-> Lucy had no problem accommodating us for the last days of our stay in Borneo letting us watch films and lounge around the hostel. We felt so bad that we had just been under her feet that we varnished her garden furniture for her, which she was really pleased with. We were sad to be leaving and saying goodbye to Lucy as it was just like having a mum away from home. She was just lovely to us and we would advise anyone going to KK to stay at “Lucys Homestay” It was clean, small and we were very well looked after. We made our way to the airport and our next destination……Oz!!! :-O
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